Random Thoughts

One belongs to the lovely and talented MELINDA METZ, connoisseur of horror movies and sunflower seeds. The other belongs to the indomitable LAURA J. BURNS, lover of naps and baths. We are a writing team. It’s a very exotic thing to be.

We like to write. Or, more specifically, we like to have written. We really like to read the many books we’ve had published, and then we like to talk to each other about how good those books are. When it comes to actually sitting down at the computer and writing…well, we don’t like that at all, in fact.

Instead, we procrastinate. That means spending hours on the phone discussing pop culture and politics or telling each other stories about our dogs. Sometimes it means trolling the internet for days and calling it research. A lot of the time it means going to the movies or just sort of sitting around eating Halloween candy and being surprised when the day is over and there are no words on the screen.

One of our favorite ways to procrastinate is to whine at each other about how we hate self-promotion and we don’t want to maintain an online presence to try to sell our books. Our books are good, darn it! (Remember, we like to talk about that.) Our job is to write them and make them good, not to promote them. Surely that must be somebody else’s job? Somebody with a clue about PR or marketing. Or how to become viral online. Or a thicker skin than we’ve got.

You know what we don’t particularly like talking about, though? Writing. As in, the craft of writing. We can discuss writing, and we know what we’re talking about, too! It’s just that waxing poetic about writing hits a little too close to actually writing, and as you know, we don’t like to actually write.

All of this is to say that every time we realize that we need to go online and start maintaining our presence, we end up not doing it because it seems like writers are supposed to blog and tweet and post only about writing. Or at least about books. And frankly, we’d rather talk about what TV shows we like. And about how awesome our dogs are. And about how fat-shaming sucks. And about the difference between the way people in California say “berry” and the way people in NY do. And about how we really love fast food, but it’s not okay to admit that anymore. And about how we kind of always react to things the way a stereotypical 10-year-old boy would even though we’re adult women. (Is that embarrassing? Or is it cool? Discuss.)

Eventually, in any project, we have to stop procrastinating and start writing. And we do. And it’s hard. And then we finish, and we’re generally pretty happy with what we’ve done. (It’s so much nicer to be writing the end of a book than that first chapter.)

We’ve been writing for a long time. We understand (although our families do not) that procrastinating to an alarming degree is a vital part of our artistic process.

So here’s our current stroke of genius: instead of procrastinating on the phone to each other, we’ll just do it in blog/tweet/Facebook form. Because then we can call it work! And we can also call it self-promotion! And we can feel good about ourselves no matter how much candy we’ve eaten that day!

But we have to warn you: though this is a writing blog, we may not talk much about writing. We may talk about which is the best kind of cheese instead. Or about why it’s hard to be alpha to your dog. Or about how Buffy would’ve killed all the Cullens just for being too mopey.

We’d love it if you would swing by and help us procrastinate. Or follow us on Twitter (@TwoHeadedWriter) and do it there! We're not picky.